Hello. I just finished my masters and am working on a paper based on my project work. I want to further my studies in the UK. Ideally, I would like to apply for a PhD but choosing a guide over the internet is not one of the best ideas. So I was thinking if I could apply for a lesser-than-PhD degree and during that time while I will already be in the UK, I could look for a guide in the field of my choice. So my question now is this..should I apply for a second MSc or MRes or MPhil? Or a PhD anyway? I don’t feel equipped enough yet to take on a PhD. I realise I know so little about working and writing in research. What should I do? My subject is ecology and there are some courses like in behaviour or modelling or landscape that I haven’t done at all and would like to learn, besides also improving on my scientific writing skills. I wait for your replies...

anyone?....

Hi Payal.This needs to be answered carefully. While you are saying that you don't want to take a chance in terms of choosing your guide, it sounds like you make most moves in your life with extreme care. This is perfectly reasonable but it can as well be argued that there can't always be guaranteed result to everything that you do. PhD itself is an open ended project which may or may not make you satisfied enough.
I entirely agree that choosing a guide in PhD is as important as choosing a project and all the rest of it. PhDs have a combination of factors in it such as guide, project, university, funding and all of them may not be exactly be of your choice so an optimum decision is to be made by none other than you. I wish you good luck with that .

Second part of your question. You do not have to do another MSc taught as you will probably find same taught content as you did in your present MSc unless you want to branch out.more over, this is not very convincing to some people too.Here yo have to bear with me as I am less than a novice in Ecology.In UK you only need to have an undergraduate degree to go for a PhD. Don't worry too much if you feel you don't know many things as PhD itself is a learning process and the more important thing is your willingness and ability to learn rather than your present knowledge. I hope this helps. Let me know if there is antything else I can help with. Cheers.